


The Ineffable Plotter (Free Will is a Bugger)

by AnonymousDandelion



Series: Prompt Fills — Tumblr Good Omens Prompts [1]
Category: Good Omens (Radio), Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Armageddon, Free Will, Garden of Eden, Gen, God Ships Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), God Smiles All The Time (Good Omens), POV God (Good Omens), Prompt Fill, She/Her Pronouns For God (Good Omens), The Great Flood, The Great Ineffable Pantser author, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), Writer's Block, god is both writer and reader, honestly not sure how to tag this one, is really more of an unplanned plot, it's a very character-driven plot, more or less?, mostly She finds them fascinating, we're the characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26474944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousDandelion/pseuds/AnonymousDandelion
Summary: She wrote, and She watched, and She wondered what would happen next, and She smiled as the Plot unfolded.~ ~ ~Written forthis prompt:I see a lot of fic where God either planned for Our Heroes to prevail all along or else She's a straight up villain. I'd like to see a story where She's just waiting to see how it all turns out. Like a fic author whose characters refuse to do what they're told.
Series: Prompt Fills — Tumblr Good Omens Prompts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2130987
Comments: 10
Kudos: 62





	The Ineffable Plotter (Free Will is a Bugger)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tumblr Anon](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Tumblr+Anon).



> To the anonymous Tumblr asker: If you've found this, thanks so much for the intriguing and inspiring writing prompt! I'm not sure whether this piece entirely matches the concept you were envisioning, but I do hope it somewhat does. I greatly enjoyed writing this. :)

There are those who claim that there exists an ineffable Plan.

Then, there are those others who claim that the concept of ineffability is a pretext, conceived to obscure the fact that there exists no Plan at all.

In point of fact, both categories of claimants are equally, and ineffably, and absolutely, and not entirely, correct.

It’s that free will thing, of course, that confuses matters. It’s a real bugger. But an interesting one.

Even — no, scratch that, _especially_ — for the One who came up with the whole idea in the first place.

Really, the Plan could perhaps more accurately be described as a Plot.

~ ~ ~

She loved all Her creations. She always had, and She always would. It was much of the reason She had created them, after all. It was for love, and for the creative urge (and also for transcendent boredom), that She had initially embarked on the Plot.

Over time, as She watched Her world develop, the love was joined by affection, and amusement, and bemusement — and, ultimately, by outright fascination.

As many a human writer can attest, the next twist in a storyline, and the characters’ reactions to each new plot device, is often at least as much of an enigma to the author as it is to the characters.

Free will, She reflected (while, in a garden, a serpent invented temptation and a human invented curiosity and a guardian invented generosity), had definitely been one of Her better notions. She sent the first raindrops, and waited to see what would ensue. And when the guardian offered the serpent shelter from the rain, She was almost as pleasantly surprised as were the guardian and the serpent themselves.

As it happens, human writers are — to an even greater extent than the rest of their species — created very much in Her image.

She wrote, and She watched, and She wondered what would happen next, and She smiled as the Plot unfolded.

~ ~ ~

In fact, many, many things happened next.

Among the many things that happened were life and death and love and loss and war and peace and fire and water and oysters and theaters and, eventually, a kitchen sink.

The Plot was intricate and sweet and sad and funny and frightening and altogether fascinating.

She laughed until She cried, and She cried until She laughed, and if She had had a seat to sit on, She would have been on its edge. And through it all, She wrote and She smiled.

~ ~ ~

The Plot involved a rather large cast of players, but fortunately She was omniscient and infinite and thus able to keep track of them all.

Originally, She had anticipated that angels and demons would be and would remain the main protagonists in the Plot. Then She created Earth and its inhabitants, and soon found that humanity was, as it were, stealing the show.

That was perfectly — ineffably, in fact — acceptable. She smiled, and kept writing.

~ ~ ~

For some time after the Beginning, She still attempted to compel the Plot to adhere to at least a broad outline. But, gradually (as plot outlines usually do), it went slowly but irrevocably astray, until at last She could see no way forward at all.

In the depths of frustrated, disappointed, despairing writer’s block, She wrote a Deluge.

It was a dark and destructive chapter.

Afterwards, She looked at the nearly-blank page before Her, and She smiled through Her sorrow, and She determined that She would never again use the eraser. She wrote a rainbow — a reminder to the world, and a reminder to Herself.

She gave up on outlining, and allowed the characters to take the Plot where they would.

She never got writer’s block again.

She never got bored again, either.

~ ~ ~

There is a thing that happens, sometimes, when one — or One — is writing. On a whim, the author slips in an obscure, sarcastic footnote, expecting it to fly quietly under the radar. And then, somehow, the characters manage to catch wind of the content of the footnote, latch onto it, misunderstand it completely, and utterly refuse to let go. Before the author has any idea what is going on (let alone the opportunity to try and stop it), the footnote has spun wildly and irretrievably out of control.[1]

That was the case with the Great Plan, anyway.

The Plan was not supposed to be part of the Plot. It was not supposed to be much of anything. It was supposed to be merely a passing piece of self-deprecating, not-to-be-taken-seriously snark regarding Her own newfound and total _lack_ of any outline or plan to speak of.

But since the denizens of Heaven and Hell alike so quickly developed an obsession with the so-called Great Plan, She gave up, let the characters have it be real, and made a strongly worded note in the margins, a reminder to Herself to avoid careless use of sarcasm in future.

That settled, the characters once again took up the many interwoven threads of the Plot, and proceeded.

She wrote and She watched and She waited — not without some significant curiosity — to discover what would happen when the time arrived for the Great Plan to come to fruition. And of course, in the meantime, She smiled.

~ ~ ~

Over the next few thousand years, humanity continued to steal the show of the Plot, with Heaven and Hell and their respective hosts blending into the bureaucratic backdrop.

Well, mostly.

There were a couple of exceptions to this rule. As the millennia passed, the serpent and the guardian who had so pleasantly surprised both Her and themselves in the garden continued to do so.

She watched their dance, enthralled, and wondered whether their thread of the Plot would prove to be a comedy or a tragedy.

Eager to find out the answer, She smiled and continued to write.

~ ~ ~

With the time for realization of the Great Plan nigh (it was fortunate that Agnes Nutter had prophesied that information some three and a half centuries ago, as it spared Her the trouble of needing to decide on a date now), She was — not for the first time since the Flood — very relieved that She had given up on outlining. It meant that She could sit back and simply write and watch and wonder, leaving the pressure to resolve the situation on the shoulders of the characters and their free will.

And indeed, She thought as She wrote and then reread the contents of Her writing with interest, it was a situation.

It would have been simple enough had everyone simply willingly acquiesced to the Great Plan. It would have been dreadfully dull, too; in fact, She rather feared that, had everyone willingly acquiesced to the Great Plan, she might have come up against writer’s block for the first time since the Flood.

But fortunately, between an antichrist, a witch, and the serpent and the guardian, there was no risk of _that_ happening.

The Plot progressed, slowly but surely, ever more complex and convoluted and character-driven.

She wrote, and She watched, and She kept on smiling. But She did wish they would work themselves around to a resolution already. The suspense was killing Her.

~ ~ ~

When they did finally work themselves around to a resolution, it was well worth the wait.

She smiled, with all the profoundly pleased gratification of an author whose Plot has, against all odds and expectations — and thanks entirely to the innovation, initiative, insistence, insubordination, and sheer audacity of its cast of characters — somehow managed to pull itself together, all but of its own accord, to a highly satisfying conclusion.

After all, it would have been a shame to have lost the product of six thousand year’s worth of creation (free will and all) to a Plan that would have in some ways been rather reminiscent of the very eraser that She had once determined never to use again.

She was glad that the world had been saved, if pleasantly surprised by the precise manner of its saving.

Oh yes, that free will thing really was an interesting bugger. Definitely one of Her better notions.

~ ~ ~

Free will notwithstanding, even — no, especially — the most ineffable of authors cannot resist tampering with the nature of reality every so often, just enough to slip a piece of subtle, spontaneous symbolism and/or cultural reference into their work. Even if it cannot quite be heard above the sound of the traffic.

So it was that, the day after the apocalypse, a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

A nightingale sang, and a book burned, and a dog ran, and a guardian and a serpent shared a toast to the world.

She smiled. And She watched and She wondered and She wrote and She waited, loving and affectionate and amused and bemused and most of all _fascinated_ , to find out where the Plot would go next.

**Footnotes**

1 Footnoting is a very, very dangerous authorial practice.[return to text]

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and I hope that you enjoyed! As always, if you have any reactions that you're up for sharing, comments give me great joy — I'd love to hear your thoughts or feedback on this one. :)


End file.
